The British Medical Association (BMA) has created letter templates to help GP practices push back on inappropriate workload from hospitals and trusts. Ardens has produced EMIS versions of these letter templates to be used within a patient record when required. The available BMA forms include:
- GP Workload Template Letter
- Template letter from Practice to CCG regarding new standard contract breaches
- Template response for clinic letters
- Template response for failure to provide fit notes
- Template response for issuing medication following OPD attendance
- Template response for patient queries
- Template response for shared care
To access the BMA Template letters, access the relevant patient record:
- Within a consultation, select the Documents > Create letter option.
- Outside of a consultation, select the Add > Document > Create letter option.
This will display the New Patient Letter screen.
Click on the magnify glass icon to search for the relevant document template.
This will display the Find Document Templates screen.
Search for the document template using the search box provided (alternatively select the Shared > Ardens National Documents folder for RP sites or Ardens Docs folder for Template Manager sites, within the folder navigation pane).
Double click on the relevant document to launch.
The following example shows the Template response for failure to provide fit notes, which once open, will prompt the user to complete the relevant information for “where the patient was seen”, “date when the patient was seen” and “which CCG has been notified of this breach”. Complete as necessary (please note these are mandatory fields).
Once you have completed the necessary information, click on the File option to the left of the screen to print and save back to the patient record.
Once the document has been saved to the patient record, if you wish to email the document, select the Documents tab of the patient record.
Double click on the relevant document to open.
If you are using Microsoft Outlook, click on the Send > via Email option to attach the document to an outlook email.
If you are not using Microsoft Outlook, click on the Export button to save the document to a secure location. This can then be picked up as an attachment for your email.
Following the steps above, you can also inform your CCG of this breach by selecting the Template letter from Practice to CCG regarding new standard contract breaches.
If you require any further assistance on the process above, please contact Ardens support on: support-emis@ardens.org.uk